I have been busy today so I have just been reading bits and pieces, but if this is true then this is huge.
Michelle Malkin has a good roundup of what’s been going on so far.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/20/the-global-warming-scandal-of-the-century/
Interesting. Of course, if true, more details need to made available. That said, it should be no surprise that the Eco-fundamentalists and "green" snake oil salesmen are pulling the biggest caper in broad daylight the world has ever seen.
However, reading the summaries that these folks have posted, such as the one in this almost comically exaggerated article by Telegraph writer James Delingpole, one thing stands out — there’s no there there. There’s no evidence of a conspiracy to commit massive fraud. There are no admissions of faking data. The worst thing they’ve dug up out of thousands of emails is this one referring to a “trick” used to adjust warming data, which Delingpole dramatically labels “Manipulation of evidence:”
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
“Trick,” of course, can also mean “an effective technique,” but if you were desperately hunting for anything smear-worthy, I suppose the word would stand out.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35184_Global_Warming_Nontroversy_of_the_Day
Seems to like somebody hacked into an email account. That sort of thing should be illegal.
or somebody just made it completely up
would you believe a hacker who posts some emails of sceptics in which they confess that they only deny AGW for their lobby interests? I doubt so , so why should you believe those emails except for the comfortable reason that they fit with your opinions.
Considering the fact that CRU has admitted that their email system was hacked the possiblitiy that these are authetic are high. Also there are some mundane emails there as well.
You also make it seem like this is the only potential evidence that global warming is not due to humans. There is enough research out there to show this as well. This just could be the shot that sinks the ship (a la 'I sank your battleship')
Final thing, I have been stating that their, CRU, original numbers were never allowed to be peer-viewed or at least one that was independant.
As the other poster said, they have confirmed much of this. There is also evidence that they hid e-mails from Freedom of Information Act requests.
What's even more sad is how the media is not covering this. Amazing.
They can't expose the subterfuge they helped create.
Not true! One of the e-mails states they will destroy the records rather than allow peer review. Another states that figures have been altered to reach the proper conclusion. It is a game to fool people. why they did this I don't know but I do know the data is not correct as stated in some of my articles last year.
Man made climate change is a hoax that has been going on since the 1970's
What I and most other reasonable people believe is that there is no doubt that global warming is occurring and that man's activity is in at least some part responsible for it. In other words AGW is a real and present danger.
On the other hand I also believe it's perfectly reasonable to argue about what the magnitude of the effect of AGW will be, how quickly that effect will occur and what, if anything, we can realistically do about it. If opponents of AGW limited themselves to these kinds arguments instead of putting their heads in the sand and simply denying that AGW even exists then perhaps their criticisms would be treated as credible instead of the insane mutterings of some lunatic fringe.
Virtually every time I see some article denying AGW it's authored by someone with absolutely no credentials in the field with a demonstrable connection to some kind of "think tank" funded by Exxon Mobil and/or Koch Industries. Even in the off chance the denier in question does have some applicable credentials then there's still the connection to the same vested interests. And while you may actually be able to find a denier with both credentials in the field and no obvious financial connection to the oil industry they are as rare as hen's teeth and in all likelihood their financial connection to the oil industry simply hasn't been uncovered *yet*.
As to how this *is* being covered in a reasonable manner here's just a *few* links.
I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail
ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer
Global warming rigged? Here's the email I'd need to see
Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute
Varying Concerns About Climate Files
Your Dot: On Science and ‘Cyber-Terrorism’
Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center
In the trenches on climate change, hostility among foes
Science historian reacts to hacked climate e-mails
Climate scientist criticizes skeptics, press
Do Leaked Emails Undermine the Scientific Consensus?
An Interesting Gripe
The real scandal in the hacked climate change e-mails controversy
Purloined CRU e-mails on climate science: One scientist pleads for accuracy
Smoking guns in the CRU stolen e-mails: A real tale of real ethics in science
Hacked E-Mails Fuel Global Warming Debate
Here’s what we know so far
Let’s look at one of the illegally hacked emails in more detail
Climate Scientists’ E-mails Hacked, Posted; So What Does it All Mean for the Climate?
The CRU hack
The CRU hack: Context
Asshole here.
Making anyone who disagrees with you by definition unreasonable. How nice.
And the AGW proponents are entirely untainted, entirely pure and academically without reproach. Right.
A terrific high-altitude perspective on this controversy. Highly recommended reading.
Terrific highly recommended reading from some nobody, from nowhere, that knows nothing.
In reality, it doesn't matter what any one puts here. Even, if G-D Himself stated something here that goes against what you believe you'd just say well HE's just saying that because HE's backed by the oil company.
Especially, with the paragraph that was quoted. You have an attitude that all (which is already a fallacy) nay-sayers that are respectable in a respected fields are getting backed by oil. With your very own agrument someone could say that is true AGW.
With your attitude it is very unscientific in the sense where the case is closed. When the case is never closed there is always room for exploration and experimentation.
Since when did most mean all?
OK. Most unreasonable people don't believe?
And this is strong, I guess: 'I and most other reasonable people believe...'
Substantive. Very substantive.
Nate Silver - blogger.
Timothy Gardner - Reuters reporter.
George Monbiot - Guardian blogger/reporter. Who later had this to say.
Andrew Revkin - NYT environment reporter.
Andrew Revkin again.
Andrew Revkin, a third time.
Juliet Eilperin - Washington Post reporter.
Juliet Eilperin again.
Andrew Freedman - a weatherman interviewing a science historian.
Andrew Freedman again - interviewing a climate scientist with a dog in the hunt.
Geof Styles - blogger on a B2B social networking site. Quite reasonable, though.
Michael Tobis - another blogger on Styles' B2B social networking site.
Robert Read - blogger.
Ed Darrell - blogger.
Ed Darrell again.
Kim Zetter - Wired reporter.
Joe Romm - editor, Climate Progress. 'Trusted' by Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman!
Joe Romm again.
Bud Ward - editor, Yale Forum.
Unattributed ('group') - Real Climate blog.
'gavin' - Real Climate blog.
Sources? - yes. 21? - not exactly. Credible? - open to debate, save a couple. Apologists? - almost entirely. Completely missing/ignoring the points raised by an 'unknown blogger with no credentials whatsoever'? - absolutely.
Given your fetish for credentials, I'm surprised at your list.
Speaking of unknown bloggers with no credentials whatsoever, here's a blog in defense of CRU's data handling practices which (I suspect unintentionally) reveals much of what's wrong with AGW 'science' - such as it is.
The videos at this link are from Bob Carter, a geologist* from Australia. I first viewed them spring of last year, shortly after they were published. For the longest time I couldn't remember his name and had lost track of them but stumbled across them again today.
*Far as I know, that's someone with some credentials.
Just to head him off at the pass, there was an article published in the Sydney Herald critical & dismissive of Bob Carter, but his presentation and other works speak for themselves.
I'm sure he'll be similarly dismissed because he got the occasional paycheck from an oil company (imagine - a geologist of value to an oil company?). Why bother with content when you can take the lazy way out?
What I've found most concerning about this is how some media outlets I trusted to at least try and appear impartial (even if they aren't fully) have just ignored this issue completely. For example the BBC devoted an article about it, where all they said was that the emails had been hacked, and refused to spend 1 line discussing their content. Contrast this to the telegraph (linked from the OP's link) which gives you content of some of the more eye catching emails. Not to say the telegraph is impartial of course, but at least they don't seem to try to hide their lack of it.
However this list was in response to ID's complaint that the MSM was not covering the issue. I submit that Reuters, the New York Times and the Washington Post are all members of said MSM which disproves ID's point. Also the Real Climate blog is of interest in that it contains many replies from the actual scientists involved.
But perhaps you're mistaking my position. I'm not saying that the hacked CRU emails mean *nothing*. But I have seen no smoking gun related to manipulating data. I've seen disdain for the deniers which frankly I can't blame. I've seen nothing that overturn's the bulk of the consensus scientific opinion on global warming which is that it *is* occurring and *is* at least in part caused by man.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change, "Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A few organisations hold non-committal positions."
Also as I mentioned in my first reply, I'm perfectly willing to consider that there is plenty to argue about as to the magnitude, timing and even whether or not we can actually do something about AGW. My own personal opinion is that dramatic changes have been predicted for quite some time and have yet to appear and while that does cause me to doubt that the world is about to end anytime soon that doesn't mean that I don't think it's possible that we could reach some kind of positive feedback tipping point that could result in dramatic changes in what could be a geological instant yet still be scores if not hundreds of years. That doesn't mean I think that such a tipping point is probable either.
In the end I agree there's probably more we don't know than we know. But as I said, to pretend global warming doesn't exist when ice shelfs and glaciers are melting all over the world along with the arctic and to pretend that all the stuff we've been pumping into the atmosphere for the last hundred years has done nothing is just silly. Particularly when *most* such talk comes directly from those doing the most pumping.
The emails are legitimate, and clearly of interest to the public. The university itself has also commeted on some of the emails, and offered their own explanation, so there is nothing to stop the BBC publishing the content of the email, and also the university's explanation alongside it. They don't need to give an opinion themselves, but I would expect them at the very least to report the basic facts+evidence.
Of course it's only the university's admission that the emails *appear* to be legitimate along with *some* of the authors acknowledging their emails and explaining what they meant that makes them legitimate.
[On a separate note, I highlight my qualifiers since *virtually* no one seems to remember them even when they explicitly appear in a quote used in their response, not that I expect it to do much good.]
However, I would expect that if they were to publish the emails, it would be most in character for them to publish *all* of them without comment and let the reader make their own decision. I very much doubt that the BBC would cherry pick only those emails deemed salacious. As we all know any kind of selection of which emails to publish is in effect a comment in and of itself.
Therefore it’s most likely that it’s the shear volume of the emails that stops the BBC from publishing them.
If the BBC were to publish the emails along with university or author comment then as a reputable news organization they would feel required to give equal time to the critics and that merely devolves into he said, she said which is another reason that I think the BBC (as well as ABC, NBC, CBS and even the CBC) is staying away from any direct commentary.
Actually as I’ve said there’s really *no* thing proven by any of these emails. I would expect again that *reputable* news sources would tend to stay away from direct comment until, and *if*, something other than speculation on the part of critics comes out of it.
On another separate note I do find the idea of "equal time" somewhat offensive. The result of this is that on any issue, no matter how one sided it is, as in this case where 99.9% of all scientific evidence is clearly on one side versus the side that is equally clearly pretty much limited to those vested corporate interests that financially benefit by being against it, is to give *equal* say to both sides in the news. This gives the appearance of legitimacy to even fringe crackpots like AGW deniers and teabaggers.
So the real question is where do you think you're actually going with this? Are *most* of you folks really deluded enough to think that this will make the least amount of difference in the consensus scientific opinion of AGW or in any global warming policy? Or are you all simply crying into your beer?
Personally I make no claim to be anything of an AGW expert. First off AGW isn't particularly *that* important a topic for me. I merely base my opinion on the facts as I see them, the most germane of which was that previously quoted line from the wiki article.
Here's a clip from Senator Inhofe (R-ExxonMobil) where he actually has the audacity to claim "We won, you lost, now get a life."
This is so stupid on so many levels. Primarily because the deniers have won nothing and secondly because that phrase could come back to haunt you folks on things like healthcare or a hundred other issues where the right is so obstinate on maintaining the status quo. However it's doubtful that the left will respond in kind when the shoe is on the other foot because there's no benefit to do so. Gloating is for children, any adult knows that things ebb and flow and what goes around comes around. For 20 out of the last 28 years the right has had its turn and has virtually nothing to show for it except for a packed supreme court and temporary tax cuts soon to expire.
If this is your victory then it is phyricc indeed so by all means wallow in it, see how far it gets you.
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